Following the discovery of the oxidic high temperature superconductors in the year 1986, efforts have been made to include this material in microelectronics. The oxidic high temperature superconductors are materials with a complex structure. In order to ensure production of the highest quality and, where possible, epitaxially grown layers, it is required in the fabrication of a thin film of such oxidic high temperature superconductors, to provide an optimum and temporally stable deposition process during the film deposition to the greatest possible extent.
One possible thin film fabrication method for such materials resides is the process of cathode sputtering. With corresponding technological cost, one can maintain most of the deposition parameters such as, for example, substrate temperature, target temperature, sputtering power, sputtering current, and process gas pressure constant.
The hitherto known cathode sputtering processes have been found, however, to be disadvantageous in that the deposited films of the oxidic high temperature superconductors do not grow perfectly monocrystalline, but rather have inhomogeneities in the film structure.